Jan. 24, 2014
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Edgar Tamayo / Texas Department of Criminal Justice

by David Agren, Special for USA TODAY

by David Agren, Special for USA TODAY

MEXICO CITY â?? Texas' execution of Edgar Tamayo for the murder of a U.S. police officer was heavily criticized by Mexican officials, who say their country rightly banned capital punishment years ago.

But if many people in Mexico had their way, the death penalty would be an option to deal with murderers such as Tamayo, surveys and criminal experts say.

Surveys by polling firms and media outlets in Mexico over the past seven years show that support for the death penalty has increased to a point where a majority would like to see it reinstated. Recent polls found 70%-80% would like to see the death penalty imposed for crimes such as murder and kidnapping, a rate above the majority support for the death penalty in the USA.

The rising support for the death penalty in Mexico comes amid gruesome kidnappings and mass murders committed by criminals and drug cartels in recent years.

Tamayo's execution made front-page news in Mexico, and protests were held in his hometown in Morelos state, just south of Mexico City. The Foreign Ministry said Tamayo was not informed properly of his consular rights, and academics and human rights groups questioned why the United States uses a punishment other countries abandoned years ago.

"It's an embarrassment that the United States, which considers itself a modern country, continues applying the death penalty," said Juan Federico Arriola, law professor at the Iberoamerican University in Mexico City.

Tamayo, 46, was executed by lethal injection Wednesday in the shooting death of Houston police officer Gary Gaddis in 1994.

Gaddis, 24, had been on the Houston police force for two years and was driving Tamayo, who was in the country illegally, and another man from a robbery scene when Tamayo shot him three times in the head and neck with a pistol he had hidden in his pants. The car crashed, and Tamayo fled but was captured a few blocks away, still in handcuffs.

Texas Gov. Rick Perry, a Republican, said the punishment was proper for such a "despicable" crime, adding that the law is the law.

Some Mexicans say their government seems to have a double standard when it comes to heinous crime: Mexican officials defend citizens convicted of murders abroad but don't do enough to provide justice or attend to victims of crime back home.

"People are complaining because he's Mexican. There's no other reason," waiter Marco Antonio RodrĂ­guez said of Tamayo.

"People might support (the death penalty) in the case of horrible crimes like rape and kidnap," he said.

Mexico did away the death penalty in 2005 and hasn't executed anyone in more than 50 years. Polls taken a decade ago showed the country split on the issue: 38% of respondents in a survey in 2004 by polling firm ParametrĂ­a supported capital punishment, while 42% were opposed.

Support shifted after the country began cracking down on crime and drug cartels in late 2006 and the incidence of murder and kidnapping increased. The National Survey on the Perceptions of Citizen Security released in November 2012 showed 74% of Mexicans backed the death penalty.

Despite the polls, political analysts express skepticism that the issue would move the masses.

"If it were (popular), someone would be trying to take advantage of it politically," says Aldo MuĂ±oz Armenta, political science professor at the Autonomous University of Mexico State.

One party has done so, however, and successfully.

The Green Party campaigned in 2009 on a platform of bringing back the death penalty for kidnappers. It even hired soap opera stars to spread the message in radio and TV commercials. In that year's midterm elections, the party won more than 7% of the vote â?? a record showing for the party, which is an ally of the governing Institutional Revolutionary Party.

MuĂ±oz says the campaign worked because of widespread fear over kidnapping, especially after the abduction and murder of Fernando MartĂ­, 14, son of the founder of a sporting goods retail empire, in 2008. His kidnap and the response from authorities prompted a rare protest march from Mexico's middle and upper classes over insecurity.

Opponents of the death penalty, such as MuĂ±oz, point to practical problems in bringing it back, including the country's criminal justice system. The system is being overhauled to introduce more transparency but has a reputation for routinely putting the wrong people in prison â?? often on flimsy evidence.

Mexico is also a heavily Catholic state, and the church has expressed its opposition to capital punishment.

"Do people actually think the justice system works? â?¦ The police will pick up anybody," says Father Robert Coogan, an American Catholic priest working as chaplain in the city of Saltillo - 190 miles south of the U.S. border at Laredo, Texas. At Coogan's morning Mass at a Saltillo prison Thursday, prayers were offered for Tamayo from prisoners concerned about the execution.

Coogan questioned whether Mexicans would want to bring back the death penalty, given the shortcomings of the system.

"I don't really think Mexicans would accept the death penalty, because they would be putting themselves at risk," he said.